Calling all LAist fans: How to get Google to give you our stories in your search results

It's hard out there for local news. If you're reading this story, chances are you're familiar with LAist's award-winning journalism — and you may even know something about how challenging it's been for independent local nonprofit newsrooms like ours in recent years.

The good news: There's now a simple step you can take to make sure when you're searching for news and information on Google, you'll get our stories.

That's because the tech giant rolled out a new program last month that lets you tell it where you'd prefer your news sources to originate.

The feature, called "preferred sources," allows you, in Google's words, to "customize your news experience in Search so you can see more of the sites you love."

While it doesn't mean you'll never again see far-away aggregators serving up L.A. and Southern California local stories, it should mean you'll see our stories high in your "top stories" section or the area called "From your sources" on the search results page.

Here's how

To add LAist.com as a preferred source, follow this link to Google's source preferences page. We've pre-populated LAist for you, but we do need you to click the box (see below).

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From there, you can add other favorite sources if you want.

Why it matters

As LAist's editor-in-chief, I'd like to say in advance that we very much appreciate you choosing LAist as one of the sites you love. Small steps like this are an easy way to support independent, fact-checked, and local journalism.

And for anyone concerned that AI is taking over your search with information you're not sure you can rely on, this is something you can do to make sure news organizations that you trust appear high in your results.